Distinguished Bowie Resident Pens Memoir

Distinguished Bowie Resident Pens Memoir
Medical Trailblazer Tells of Many ‘Firsts’ as a Black Anesthesiologist

Bowie, Maryland — Melville Q. Wyche, Jr., M.D., a Bowie resident and a trailblazer in anesthesiology practice and education, is the author of They Called Me Super Doc: An Anesthesiologist’s Memoir. Through vignettes personal and professional, Dr. Wyche recounts his achievements and setbacks during the journey from his roots in segregated Washington, North Carolina, to retirement in the Washington, D.C., area.

Dr. Wyche graduated from Hampton University (Hampton, VA) and Meharry Medical College (Nashville, TN) and cut his teeth in anesthesiology in the U.S. Army (three months on-the-job training), ultimately becoming chief of Anesthesia and Operating Room, United States Army Hospital, Camp Zama, Japan. In 1967, he became the first Black doctor accepted into the Department of Anesthesiology Residency Training Program at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1970, became the first Black faculty member of that department.

Dr. Wyche served as chief of Anesthesia Service and Oxygen Therapy Service, Philadelphia General Hospital in the 1970s, and as director, Department of Anesthesiology, Pennsylvania Hospital (Philadelphia) in the 1980s.

In 1988, Dr. Wyche joined Howard University Hospital as chief of the Anesthesiology Division of Surgery and program director, Anesthesiology Training Program, and a year later, was appointed professor and chairman of the newly established Department of Anesthesiology. In 2000, he was elected president of the medical staff at Howard University Hospital.

On the national level, Dr. Wyche has served as associate examiner for the American Board of Anesthesiology; residency inspector, Residency Review Committee for Anesthesiology; board member of the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research; and as a member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, among other national accomplishments. He is the first Black physician elected to membership in the Association of University Anesthesiologists.

“My father and mother were both educators, but I took another path, or so I thought. I chose medicine, little knowing that my entire career would be devoted to academics, helping to shape the lives and practices of young men and women,” said Dr. Wyche.

Dr. Wyche served as a member of the Governor’s Task Force for Improvement of Prince George’s County Maryland Hospital System in 2002. He and his wife, Alice Mahan Wyche, own and operate two assisted living facilities in Bowie. He is a former commodore of the Seafarers Yacht Club, Inc., and a founding director and former board member of the Seafarers Foundation, Inc., in Annapolis, Maryland.

To purchase the memoir, visit They Called Me Super Doc.